Fun at the Burg Nanstein Medieval Fair in Landstuhl, Germany

Phil Finished the Luxembourg Marathon (Despite a Twisted Ankle!)

Click to enlarge photo!

I'm so proud of my boy! The whole time I've known him, his dream has been to finish a single marathon. Then, from out of the blue at age 35, he runs 3 marathons in 8 months! Crazy! First, he ran the Frankfurt, then the Bad Durkheim (a little German town along the wine road in Germany), and now the Luxembourg marathon. He's obsessed! It's really uplifting to see all of the people in their 60's whizzing by all of the younger folks...wow...that's going to be Phil one day! And I get to come along and hang out in wonderful cities and cheer him on without even breaking a sweat. Well, I window-shopped at some exquisite Luxembourgian (my own word, I think) clothing boutiques during the run and ate some fabulous pastries (but nobody was exactly cheering me on or anything). I'm pretty much just along for the ride. Each marathon is so different and so invigorating; the thumping music, the camaraderie, the street performers, the raucous parties after...it's wonderful.

Our Lovely Paris Vacation: A Poetry Reading, Burning at the Notre Dame Cathedral, and a Midnight Picnic on the Left Bank

There are pigeons and love-birds all around Paris' famous Notre Dame Cathedral. Oh, look, here's a couple of love-birds snuggling in front of the wood and calligraphic metal door of the cathedral. Can you hear them cooing? Can you hear the mighty organ reverberating ecstatically through the stone walls of the gothic cathedral?

Inside, the cathedral is glowing with candles and faces turned to god, burning passionately. Everything rises. Far above us, in the pocket of heaven tucked into the angles of the cathedral ceiling, our prayers took wing in the dark warm spaces. A little bit of this hallowed atmosphere entered our lungs, then released itself back into the respiratory system of the cathedral, each of our bodies a minute bronchi in the breathing in and out of this great stone spirit.

This was a brilliant day and night! Oh man, it's the stuff of dreams! We spent time at the legendary Shakespeare and Company English-language bookstore, where we saw a poetry reading and where the kiddos curled up on an old couch with the resident puppy. Then, just literally a hop, skip, and a jump across the river and voila! We were at the Notre Dame cathedral!

We visited the cathedral in 2005 too, but it was closed...so we hung out with backpackers, tourists, and all sorts of colorful characters late into the night watching street artists and fire jugglers. This time, though, oh man...not only was the cathedral open, but there was a midnight mass in progress (serendipity - my true religion!!!) when we entered, replete with organs and the sound of many voices raised like wine to god. After this heady experience, we had a scrumptious picnic while watching a street performer juggle and blow fire. Every time I look at this picture (above), it evokes these memories.

On a sophomoric note: in this picture (above) Phil's backpack looks like a futuristic jet pack, the twin "jets" of the French bread about to propel them across the Seine. It cracks me up!


With full hearts and souls and bellies we strolled around the Left Bank as long as we could before collapsing. It's a sacrilege to waste time sleeping in the city of lights...so we traded a bit of sleep for a bit of Paris that we'll have in our memories forever. A dream for a dream.

My 35th Birthday in Strasbourg, France

I just turned 35! This is going to be the best year of my life. I can feel it. I could feel it the night of my birthday, cathedral bells singing and ringing through the cobblestones and vibrating through the soles of my feet. Like water, the music rose through me to my tiptop branches and leaves. I was nourished.

My Dad reminded me that bodies completely regenerate themselves on a cellular level every seven years . . . by this logic, not one cell in my body is the same as when I was 28. A re-in-carn-ation of sorts. "Carn" meaning flesh; becoming flesh again. Old cycles , tendencies, habits have fallen from me like dust. This body has reinvented itself five times, blooming and blooming from my soul's stalk. I am so thankful to become 35 with my lovely (loving) family at my side celebrating me and my life.


Here's my first sweet baby and me kickin' it at the hotel after I sampled my TWO homemade birthday cakes (both girls insisted on making me their very own cake). I emailed Aunt Cindi saying that both my heart and my waistline expanded exponentially that night...


The Lvov of Love:



The best thing I ever did in this world was make these two little humans!!! And speaking of making things, check out the gifts they gave me...



Akychame spent hours and hours hand-sewing me a pillow with a heart embroidered on it and another tiny heart hanging from the corner of the pillow by a ribbon. I called them "you & me" hearts. It reminds me of the saying, "having kids means to forever have your heart running around outside of your body" (or something like that)...the pillow is me, and Akychame is the heart attached to me by a fine length of ribbon, running around outside of my body.

Lvov wrote me ten love notes, some with poems on them, some with drawings...some just telling me all of the little tiny things that I do that she loves...one has a drawing of us holding hands. Above my head she wrote, "the Queen of Love" and above her head she wrote, "the Lvov of Love." And one note had I love you written over and over again in every conceivable inch. The greatest part is, she wrote exactly 35 I love you's for my 35th year, but she didn't do it on purpose. It was a total coincidence!



My birthday cakes were only alive for two days, but they were very well-traveled. Because the girls wanted me to have birthday cakes ON my birthday, and because they wanted the cakes to be homemade & not bought at a patissier, the cakes ended up traveling in the back of our car from Germany to France, then being carried by Phil & the kiddos from a deep-throated car garage through downtown Strasbourg in the middle of the night past street performers and throngs of tourists; and lastly, up, up, up to our little hotel room and onto the cozy bed; and then, of course, into my mouth, which to the cakes must have seemed an awful lot like descending into the car garage again.

Here's a typical little street in Strasbourg near our hotel. Notice the patissier (below) that we completely ignored because we already had the most delicious cake in the world.



Here's our charming hotel by the Strasbourg cathedral:



The hotel literally buzzed when the bells sang out. They would chime for five minutes every hour high above the heads of puppeteers, acrobats, devils, and fire-jugglers performing below for the "Street Artist Weekend," a gala feast of the senses sponsored by the city.


This is the view from our hotel room. We could feel the energy & excitement of the city through our open windows. Below, people dined at midnight under crimson umbrellas, sports teams sang songs to rival the bells, drunken lovers stumbled by, and here and there a person would saunter slowly by on stilts on the way to a performance. If you crane your neck to the left and lean out of our hotel window a little, your eyes will follow the bells to their source. The magnificent singing cathedral. You have to enlarge this photo and imagine that the ground is vibrating and the air buzzing with a call to prayer.


Little did we know when we pulled into Strasbourg on a total whim (the way we do most of our traveling) that the city would be teeming and burning with the Street Artist's Festival. It was sheer luck and serendipity. If I have a belief system, a spirituality or superstition, it hinges on serendipity. It's the knuckle, the joint upon which everything poetic revolves.

Here's a picture from my favorite street performance - pungent gasoline and rocking bagpipes lit the night on fire (you might want to click on the photo to enlarge):


Even the puppets were playing with fire that night. I couldn't have wanted a more spectacular birthday if I were a queen. It's as if every performer in the city outdid themselves just to entertain me.


Everywhere I turn, I see fire. I seek its warmth and destruction, the smoldering of old modes and skins. It will light the way for me, burning a path warm and smoky. This is going to be the best year of my life.

Chocolate, Street Dancers, and an Old Friend in Brussels